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  Chapter Eight

  When Alex could see again, there were clouds all around her. She wasn’t sure where she was, though. It felt as if she were looking at herself in a mirror or a dream. She could see her body while she was in it, and it was extremely disorienting.

  As she looked around, she noticed she was surrounded by dragons and dragonriders. She realized she was in the air, and this was a place she’d been before. This wasn’t happening right now. This was a memory of some mission she’d played in Middang3ard VR.

  Jim was at Alex’s side. He was smiling and waving to get her attention. The rest of her party was lined up behind him, and there were more dragonriders she didn’t recognize as well. It looked like they were on a raid with a couple of other groups.

  Alex wracked her brain to try to figure out exactly what the mission was and what they were doing. She also absentmindedly wondered how she’d gotten here. Her brain felt fuzzy, and it was difficult to put thoughts together. The only thing that seemed right was watching events unfold as if they were a movie, which made much more sense.

  Jim shouted at Alex over the wind, “Hey, I did some research on these frost giants before we came out here. They don’t look like they’re going to be too tough. We got this. Real easy.”

  Alex watched herself speaking, the words coming from her mouth even though she wasn’t thinking them. It was a freaky experience. “They can’t be too easy,” she replied. “This raid is two levels higher than I am. I highly doubt this is going to be simple.”

  One of the riders behind Alex pushed his dragon up farther, so he was between Alex and Jim. “What are you two talking about?” he asked. “Trying to keep secrets? You know this raid isn’t going to work if we aren’t communicating with each other.”

  A rider behind them shouted, “What’s there to communicate? We’re going up against frost giants. We’re riding fire-breathing dragons, or at least anyone who got the memo has a dragon that breathes fire. Thank God no one brought any frost dragons. This’ll be over before lunch.”

  The voice that had spoken to Alex before bubbled up in her head again. You seem to be nervous in this memory, the voice mused. Just relax. Talk to me. Don’t worry about trying to do or say the right thing. As long as you relax, the memory will flow naturally.

  Alex didn’t see the point in arguing. Obviously, the voice knew more about reliving memories than she did, and it sounded kind of nice to sit back and watch her previous exploits. Maybe she could learn something new by watching.

  The host of dragonriders soared higher. As Alex relaxed, the emotions she’d felt that day washed over her. She’d been apprehensive; something had been off with the mission description.

  Alex pulled up her HUD and looked at the description of the mission.

  A group of frost giants has stolen the long-lost scrolls of El-Zeroth. They have hidden them deep within their fortress. It is up to you to retrieve the scrolls to keep the frost giants of Nordom from reading the hidden secrets of the scrolls.

  Alex reread the raid description. On the surface, there didn’t seem to be anything odd, other than that this was a raid given specifically to dragonriders, which would be like creating a mermaid-specific mission for water mages.

  It would be too easy.

  The dragonriders clustered together to speak about their plan for taking on the frost giants. Most of the riders thought it would be best to hit the giants straight on. They could easily burn through their defenses. Frost giants always built their defenses out of ice. It would be a slaughter.

  Alex kept her opinion to herself, which caught Jim’s attention. Usually, she was one of the first to put her ideas forward. She didn’t care much if people listened to them since she knew the mission was most important, and having more ideas flowing meant better planning.

  In the distance, Alex could see the frost giants’ fortress. It was built into a snowy mountain ridge and looked like it was carved completely out of ice. It produced the sweeping awe of a Victorian mansion, looking far too sophisticated.

  Alex thought about everything she knew about frost giants. She had the odd feeling someone was listening to her thoughts but pushed the worry away. This was supposed to play out like a movie or something. She was just along for the ride.

  Frost giants came from an entirely different realm. They weren’t native to Middang3ard and had come to this realm with the Norse gods. Loki had brought them here in the last released expansion.

  The raid before this had involved helping Thor win a battle against Loki, effectively locking all the frost giants back into their realm. According to the in-game lore, there shouldn’t have been frost giants in Middang3ard anymore, and that was what was off.

  She flew closer to Jim and waved him over. “I don’t think we should strike them head-on.”

  Jim sighed, rolled his shoulders back, and sat down on his dragon. “Why not?”

  “Frost giants aren’t even supposed to be in the game right now, remember? We all did that Thor and Loki raid. We sent them back. Whatever stole those scrolls isn’t a proper frost giant. They’re up to something weird.”

  “So, you’re saying we should split up and let everyone else have all the fun?”

  Alex was already messaging the rest of the players in the raid. She had a feeling none of them were going to take her seriously. Everyone seemed pretty gung-ho to take on the giants. She couldn’t really blame them; giants netted a lot of XP.

  But Alex wasn’t that shortsighted.

  Killing enemies gave XP, but it was nowhere near the XP and loot you got from completing a mission without dying, which was what Alex was after.

  In a couple of minutes, Alex received messages from the other players. As expected, none were interested in detouring from the original plan. Everyone thought they had the battle won.

  Alex wrote another message to her party.

  I really think they’re making a mistake. I think we’re going to get wiped out by whatever the fake frost giants have in store. We should take another route. Go around back. See if we can swipe the scrolls that way. The mission doesn’t say anything about killing the giants, just getting the scrolls back.

  Jim messaged Alex.

  They’re on an enormous mountain of ice. Why wouldn’t they be frost giants?

  Because Frost Giants are subterranean. Why would they build anything on a mountain?

  You got a point there. So, we’re going around the back? Don’t you think it’s kind of messed up to let everyone else just get wiped out?

  I sent them all the same message I sent you guys. Besides, we don’t know for sure. We could be wrong and fly into something even worse. We’ll find out when we get there.

  Alex and her party broke away from the rest of the dragonriders. No one from the other parties noticed or cared. The mountain came up quickly as Alex’s party swooped to the right to take the long way around.

  To say the mountain was huge would be to minimize its sheer size. It was roughly the width of a small island. It looked like a continent had been ripped from the ocean and stretched toward the sky. It was impossible to see the top.

  The party had been flying for nearly fifteen minutes, still trying to reach the opposite side of the mountain, the polar opposite of the original coordinates.

  Phillis, who was riding a swap-in dragon for her ice dragon, crossed her arms. “Am I the only one who is insanely bored?” she whined. “If I wanted to just ride around, I wouldn’t have joined a raid.”

  Alex looked at Phillis with disbelief. “Honestly, how can you be bored right now?”

  “Everyone else is off doing some major killing, and we’re just floating around like a couple of pigeons.”

  Alex leaned forward, and her dragon anchor glowed brightly as she sped past the rest of her party members. How could you possibly be bored up here? she wondered.

  The bubbling voice of her invisible friend came through her thoughts again. My thoughts exactly, the voice agreed. I don’t think your friends have t
he same appreciation for the skies as you do.

  Alex knew the voice was right, but she still felt the need to defend her friends. “Not everyone plays Middang3ard for the same reasons,” she said. “I kind of latched onto riding dragons as soon as I found out you could. Some people like the fighting, I guess. I love the flying.”

  The voice chuckled. That’s good to know.

  Up ahead of Alex, at the new coordinates, was a swarm of black. She flipped down her HUD to zoom in so she could get a better view. The black swarm was made up of giant ravens. While the birds were nearly half the size of the dragons, they were still only ravens.

  Alex hit the radio on her HUD and shouted, “Looks like you guys will see some excitement after all!”

  She sped toward the congress of ravens. She’d always thought “congress” was such a cool name for a group of birds, almost as good as a murder of crows.

  The rest of the party caught up with Alex because she slowed down to give them a chance to get some kills in.

  Jim swept into the mass of ravens as his dragon launched fire from its mouth and burned through the first line of birds easily. He mimed pulling back on his reins, causing his dragon to come to a full stop before spinning in a circle and burning everything in sight.

  The rest of the dragonriders tore into the congress as well. Their elemental dragons filled the air with the crackle of lightning or boulders they flung.

  Alex held back and watched the battle before her. She knew they wouldn’t need her help and was content to enjoy the still sky around her.

  The invisible voice made itself known again. Why didn’t you join the fight? the voice asked.

  Alex was roused from her peaceful thoughtfulness. “Huh. Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s kinda nice over here, and I was questing all day. I don’t need the XP. I just wanted to figure out what was going on with the raid, and I was curious about what’s up with the whole scroll thing.”

  After Alex’s party cleared away the ravens, she flew through the shower of black feathers to where her HUD’s coordinates were pointing her. Alex could see there was a doorway built into the side of the mountain. It wasn’t locked and only had a latch. “Bingo,” she said as she got close enough to pull the door open.

  Alex’s HUD binged. It was a message from some of the other players. Turned out they had all been wiped out. The frost giants hadn’t been giants at all. It looked like it was an illusion by the god Loki.

  Jim flew over to Alex as they both dismounted their dragons and jumped through the door into the mountain. “Looks like you were right,” he admitted. “Sorry for doubting you.”

  Alex selected a lantern from her inventory. “Jim, I’d be worried if you did everything I said,” she admitted. “I appreciate your judgment. Keeps me from thinking I’m always right.”

  For the first time since Alex had heard the voice in her head, she reached out to it to say something. “I can’t wait to show you what we found,” she exclaimed. “It was really…”

  Suddenly her thoughts became fuzzy again. The world around her was breaking up, and she had the same sensation of falling, followed by a loud voice repeating something over and over. This voice was not coming from her head; it was very real.

  Alex’s eyesight returned. She looked around, confused as to where she was. Manny was floating in front of her, some of his eyes glaring and the others wide open. “What the hell are you doing in here?” the Beholder demanded.

  Alex stood up and prepared to brush past Manny. She’d completely forgotten she’d stormed away from the mess hall because of her argument with Brath. “I’m okay,” she said briskly.

  “You aren’t supposed to be in here yet,” Manny continued.

  “Why not? What’s so important in here?”

  Alex turned, and the blood drained from her face as her heart rate doubled.

  Crouched before Alex was a smooth-skinned ether dragon. It looked as if it didn’t have any scales and was a mixture of different shades of green. As the dragon leaned forward, its green skin shimmered to white and then purple, making it look as if it were liquid. The dragon was smaller than any Alex had seen in Middang3ard.

  Alex backed away out of instinct. Now she knew what that strange smell was: the scent of a real dragon. Nice to meet you, Alex, the voice said in her head. My name is Chine.

  “Nice to m-meet you,” Alex stammered, raising her hand weakly.

  One of Manny’s tentacles wrapped around her wrist and pulled her away from the dragon. “Come on, we need to get going,” he barked as he rushed Alex out of the room.

  Chapter Nine

  Manny didn’t say much as he ushered Alex out of the room and down the hall. They walked for some time before Alex finally cracked and spoke first. “Those guys were jerks,” Alex said softly. “I know I shouldn’t have gotten that upset, but I couldn’t be around them.”

  Manny hardly seemed to notice what Alex said. “Oh, I don’t care about you leaving,” Manny finally admitted. “You’re a big girl, and I have no doubt you can take care of yourself. I was supposed to keep you away from the dragon’s nest, though. Myrddin was very specific about that.”

  Alex smiled at Manny. “Well, how about you keep my little secret, and I’ll keep yours?”

  Manny’s eyes checked over his shoulder to see if there was anyone around. “All right, deal,” he whispered. “Now, let’s get you to your room before anyone notices you’re not around.”

  They started down the hall again. “Wait, ‘my room?’” Alex asked, “Am I going to be living here?”

  “Think of it as an introduction to living in a dorm room in college, except you only have one roommate, and I don’t think she takes up much space.

  Manny turned a corner, and the crystal opened a door into a room. The number 12 was above it. “Here you go,” he said. “Go ahead and get settled in. I’ll be back when it’s time for the binding ceremony.”

  “The binding ceremony? What’s that?”

  A mischievous grin spread over Manny’s huge face. “Oh, come on, don’t you like surprises?” he asked before spinning around and racing down the hall, cackling like a madman.

  Alex couldn’t help chuckling. That was the most eldritch thing she’d seen Manny do, and even so, it was far too good-natured to be the action of a true eldritch creature.

  The room Alex stood in now was very different from those she’d seen in the Wasp’s Nest so far. First, the crystal had a different appearance, more like redwood. If Alex looked closely, she could still see it was crystal. This must have been to create more of a homey feel rather than the grandiose nature of the rest of the Nest. Alex was thankful for it.

  She walked farther into the room as her vision started to dim. It didn’t disappear completely, though. Manny must have decided to give her some space but not get far enough away to blind her.

  The room was modestly furnished. There was a desk, a rocking chair, and a bed built into the wall. Alex scratched her head as she spun to look at the room. She could have sworn Manny had said something about having a roommate, but there wasn’t any other furniture.

  She sat down on her bed and wondered where her roommate’s furniture could be. Then she noticed it. There was a small bed on her dresser, barely the size of her cellphone. A miniature dresser was next to the bed. Guess I’m rooming with a pixie, Alex thought. Might as well rest until she gets here.

  The bed was soft enough that she sprawled out and was asleep within minutes.

  Alex woke to the sound of someone singing softly and sat upright as fast as she could. She was slightly confused as to where she was before remembering everything that had happened over the last couple of days. She swung around and hung her feet off the bed.

  She noticed someone brought the bags her mom had sent ahead into the room and stacked them by the dresser, mostly books. It would be interesting to read braille even though she could see.

  The soft singing stopped, and Alex heard a flutter of wings just before she smelled pix
ie dust. Jollies flew from the desk and stopped in front of Alex’s face while beaming brightly. “Oh, good, you’re awake,” the pixie exclaimed. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up forever!”

  Alex returned the enthusiastic smile and scooted down her bed so she could lean against the wall and get out of Jollies' brightness. “Glad to see you too,” Alex said. “Looks like I’m going to be your roommate.”

  “Good. I haven’t had a roommate since I got here. Everyone else has been all buddy-buddy with their roommates, and I’ve just been hanging out with the other pixies, trying to make friends. Everyone is so cliquish, it’s ridiculous.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “So, how do you like the Wasp’s Nest so far?”

  Alex told Jollies everything that had been on her mind since she arrived. How enthralled she was with the magic and tech everywhere. She told the pixie this was the first time she’d ever really seen magic, and she hadn’t been expecting it to be part of the architecture.

  Jollies had a similar feeling. Where she was from, magic wasn’t used for mundane things. Magic was reserved for formal occasions and events. It was weird to see magic being used for something as simple as a building, but she liked it.

  As the two of them talked, Alex’s mind started to drift back to Chine. Alex had only briefly seen Chine, but she still couldn’t believe she’d actually talked to a dragon. She couldn’t wrap her head around how much personality Chine had compared to the dragons she’d met in Middang3ard.

  “Hey, Jollies? Have you met any dragons since you’ve been here?”

  Jollies floated down and sat next to Alex on the bed. “Met a dragon? Not in person. Not yet. We’re supposed to be doing that tonight,” she answered.

  “So, you haven’t spoken to one yet?”

  “Nope. Why are you asking?”

  “No reason.”

  Jollies fidgeted as she sat. “Hey, I wanted to apologize for earlier,” she started. “About Gill and Brath. That was out of line. Brath is…well, Brath kinda hates humans. He’s still really upset they didn’t come to help when the gnome realm was attacked.”